Pigtails
by Ivanolix
Summary: Sam brings to light something that Vala might have taken too far.


_(originally published on Livejournal)_

After two years of SGC meetings, Vala had figured out that being late did not, in fact, lessen the time you spent there, as there was not only repetition of everything you'd missed but also wearisome admonitions. And for non-Earth persons like herself, this last part held especially true, as if she was any less aware of how _time_ worked. So she slipped into the limousine on schedule when the President called the team to an urgent meeting, and twiddled her thumbs as the rest of the team failed to arrive.

Rolling her eyes absently towards the ceiling, she wondered if Earth humans thought about more efficient communications. Such as what Cam called Goa'uld television balls, and less formal prevarication and more "this happened, do this, with this".

Finally Sam slipped in the car opposite her, nearly matching Vala in her official uniform. She called for the driver to hurry, and took a deep breath as the car started moving. "I can't believe I didn't hear the first phone call," she said, fastening her seatbelt as they started driving out. "That reactor was loud, but—oh Vala." She paused and her tone fell as she looked up.

Vala blinked and knew that voice all too well. "Did I button the wrong number of buttons?" She glanced down at her front and wondered how many superfluous customs one tiny piece of a planet could have.

"No," Sam said with a quick grimace. "Hair."

Vala brushed the curled ends of her pigtails with slight confusion. "It's clean."

"It's the pigtails," Sam said flatly, gesturing. "And the crystal marble barrettes. Vala, it's the U.S. Government, we're supposed to go looking nice."

Vala frowned. "I've been studying your culture's beauty standards, and I know that 'looking nice' in the case of females means suggesting extreme youth."

"What?" Sam shook her head slightly.

"Big eyes, wide forehead, small chins, small noses," Vala ticked off on her fingers. "Not to mention the clear soft skin. I just accessorized likewise."

Sam stared at her. "That's why you've always worn hair sparkles? You thought—" she broke off, flustered.

"No, that first year was trying to discover why you valued diamonds over crystals even though nearly the only difference is scarcity," Vala admitted solidly. Then she snorted, "As for the broader discovery, I think it's fairly obvious."

Sam rubbed at the bridge of her nose. "No, Vala, no. Those pigtails just make you look...well, never mind, I can fix them, come here." She indicated the adjacent seat in the limo.

Vala hid her piercing look in her exaggerated movement over to the other seat, turning her back to Sam so Sam could tug and twist at her hair. It was odd, but she wasn't certain she believed her friend. Surely as a scientist she should know that you didn't ignore correlations that strong, and however Sam might protest, there was a very odd but clear fascination with childlike features in this country. Vala had found it hard to use to her advantage, her skin and nose in particular being mature enough to earn her high marks on many another world with other standards.

But as Sam twirled her hair up into a hasty bun, pulling everything in tight and supplementing Vala's shaping hair pins with the barrettes, she saw no reason to protest. As Daniel always said (voicing what intuition told her on its own), part of learning a new culture—"anthropology"—was observation without attempt to change. Activism hadn't worked with meetings and schedules; she wouldn't even bother confronting hairstyles.

It was just a shame, since she had such a large collection of sparkles now. She wondered if she could possibly sell them offworld as rare "Earth Diamonds"—after all, their scarcity in the galaxy would be just as great as true diamonds on Earth, and anything that kept the status symbol was a perfectly ethical aspect of business.

Then again, Earth ethics were as complicated as anything else when it came to appropriate lies and exaggeration (television "commercials"), and cons (the longer ones that were instead called "infomercials", so the naming didn't make _any_ sense at all). Vala sighed, but it wasn't for her hair as Sam guessed.

She just doubted that anyone but Teal'c would ever understand that Earth was _strange_.


End file.
